“We're goin' to have fallin' weather 'fore long,” she observed, oracularly. “The wind has changed since dinner, and when the wind whirls about on a sudden, we upon this ridge is the fust to find it out. I must see that them lazy chil'len, Lena and Lizy, fills your wood-box to-night with dry wood; I'd be loth to have you ketch cold while you are here.” “You are very good, Mammy, but why do you trouble yourself to attend to my fire? You should have sent up Lena with that great load of logs.” “I ain't easy without I see to you myself, at least once a day. It 'minds me of the good ole times to wait upon you. O, Lord! how long?” shaking her tartan turban with a portentous groan, her chin almost scraping the hearth, as she stooped to blow into the crater of fiery coals. Mabel was too well versed in the customs of the race and class to take alarm at the mysterious invocation. She watched the old woman's movements in a sort of pensive amusement at the recollection of an incident of her childhood, brought vividly to her mind by the servant's air and exclamation. She was playing in the yard one day, when “Mammy” emerged from her cottage-door, and came toward her, with a batch of sweet cakes she had just baked for her nursling. In crossing the gravel walk leading to the “house,” she struck her toe against the brick facing of this, and the cakes flew in all directions. “Good Lord! my poor toe and my poor chile's cakes!” was her vehement interjection; and as she bent to gather up the cookies, she grunted out the same adjuration, coupled with “my poor ole back!”--a negress' stock subject of complaint, let her be but twenty years old and as strong as an ox. “Mammy!” said the privileged child, reprovingly, “I thought you were too good a Christian to break the commandments in that way. You shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain.” “Gracious! Sugar-pie! how you talk! Ef I don't call 'pon Him in time of trouble, who can I ask to help me?” was the confident reply. With no thought of any more formidable cause of outcry than a cramp in the much-quoted spine, Mabel dreamed on sketchily and indolently, enjoying the sight of the once-familiar process of building a wood-fire, until the yellow serpents of flame crept, red-tongued through the interstices of the lower logs, and the larger and upper began to sing the low, drowsy tune, more suggestive of home-cheer and fireside comfort than the shrill, monotonous chirp of the famous cricket on the hearth. The pipe-clayed bricks on which the andirons rested were next swept clean; the hearth-brush hung up on its nail, and the architect of the edifice stepped back with a satisfied nod. “I have often wished for a glimpse of one of your beautiful fires, Mammy, since I have been in Albany,” said Mabel, kindly. “Our rooms and halls are all heated by furnaces. An open fireplace would be a novelty to Northerners, and such a roaring, blazing pile of hard wood as that, be considered an unpardonable extravagance.”